by Molly White
“No one else is as good as you?”
“Maybe other people knew not to take the job,” she retorted. “Maybe other people have families and friends and aren’t as expendable if something goes wrong.”
“That could also be it,” he admitted.
“It’s going to be all right.” He took her hand and squeezed it. “The worst thing they can do is fire us.”
“You’re adorable,” she sniped at him, but she didn’t move her hand away from his.
“So this Lancaster fella. You knew him before?” Brendan asked.
Cordelia stared out the window. “You could say that, yes.”
“That’s strategically vague,” he shot back. “And is it a happy reunion?”
“I’m not sure.” She gave him an unsteady smile. “I know that seems like a mixed message, considering I kissed you recently, and I have—I have feelings for you. I don’t really know how to follow up on that. I don’t know how to feel about it. I’ve been annoyed with you. I’m currently annoyed with Alex. It’s all just a big snarled emotional tangle.”
“Well, you’re honest about it, and I appreciate that,” Brendan said.
Brendan was going to add a bit about wanting her to be happy, while somehow undermining Lancaster’s stupid, handsome face, but as the car approached the village, he was distracted by the sight of armed response personnel surrounding a tall man in a black suit. There was a new trailer—gray cement and chrome and much more bunker-like—placed so close to the administrative trailer that it was almost touching.
He murmured, “I’m assuming that’s Mr. Messina.”
“Or it’s some other guy posing for some sort of ‘douchey businessmen who like to make dramatic scenes’ magazine cover,” she retorted.
Brendan snickered as he parked the car. “I really hope the cars aren’t bugged.”
“Worth it,” she muttered.
As they exited the car, the response unit moved forward in their black Kevlar gear, as if Brendan and Cordelia were some sort of threat. Darwin Messina was a tall, thin man with olive skin, sharp features and cold dark eyes.
“Ms. Canton, Mr. O’Connor, please follow me,” Messina said.
He gestured toward the new trailer like a grim game show host, as if they had any choice in the matter. It was easy enough to be persuaded with armed men crowding around them like a pushy disco date. Cordelia’s hand closed around his wrist as they were nudged toward the bunker trailer. He could feel her pulse, thready and fast. He wanted to pull her into his side, shield her from the goons surrounding them, but it wouldn’t do for Messina to think there was anything beyond the professional between them.
It took multiple biometric scans and key cards to enter the bunker trailer, which was far less inviting than Jillian’s office. There was no cheerful lobby space or welcoming assistant named Leonard to make you a nice cuppa. It was just foreboding gray walls and metal crates stacked to the ceiling.
Messina made another fluid gesture towards a windowless metal door that looked like it belonged in a prison. The only furniture inside this room was a long, polished metal table and equally inhospitable chairs. Brendan and Cordelia took seats on the side nearest the door. Brendan noted a thick metal loop welded into the surface of the table. It looked like the sort of thing you would see in a police station, for securing prisoners for interrogation.
He did not like this room.
Messina, however, seemed completely at ease there. He shrugged out of his suit jacket and handed it to one of his armed compatriots.
“Is there a reason we’ve been pulled into an interrogation room?” Cordelia asked in a tone so polite, it made Brendan’s jaw ache. “And why isn’t Dr. Ramsay here? As far as I’m aware, she’s still my immediate supervisor.”
“Oh, I don’t see the need to bring in supervisors for what should be a polite, casual conversation, Ms. Canton,” Messina said lightly, relaxing back into his chair.
“A polite, casual conversation in an interrogation room?” Cordelia asked. “With armed guards?”
“The guards are for my protection,” he said. “It’s standard procedure whenever I travel.”
“You need protection against two unarmed people?” said Cordelia.
“Well, the employees of the League are never really unarmed, are they?” Messina countered. “There are powers and abilities untold within the confines of this little backwater, including your own. And this is why I was hoping that you could explain to me how you have resided in Mystic Bayou for weeks now, have made contact with the casket twice, and have had very little in the way of new information to offer us. Dr. Ramsay has explained the urgency of the situation, yes? That the secrecy of our kind depends on negotiating with the artifact and containing the rift?”
Brendan could see the stubborn resentment rippling across her face, hardening it like cement. Her lip curled ever so slightly as she said in a not-quite-so-polite tone, “I have spent quite a bit of time explaining my progress with the artifact and why that progress is taking so much time. There is no fault in Dr. Ramsay’s leadership. As she mentioned, my first encounter with the casket put me in a coma and I wasn’t cleared by the League doctor to re-engage until today.”
“And yet, today, you still didn’t manage to discern what the artifact wants,” Messina said.
“Because she was offended by someone else who was talking about her as if she wasn’t in the room,” Cordelia said. “I don’t even know whether she will be willing to answer questions, or if she’s even capable of that kind of communication. Right now, all she’s doing is showing me what she wants to show me. It’s not like I can bust in there and treat her like a hostile suspect.”
Cordelia sent a significant look at Messina and then around the room.
“Right now, I’m lucky she’s not melting my brain for daring to engage with her,” Cordelia added.
Messina stared at her for a long moment, tapping his manicured fingers against the surface of the table. “We’ve invested a considerable amount of resources in you, Ms. Canton, particularly paying attention to keeping your location a secret from certain outside parties. It would be a shame if we didn’t receive a return on that investment. Should you fail to grasp the urgency of this matter, fail to produce the desired results, it may no longer be in the best interest of the League to devote those resources to your protection, leaving you vulnerable to those outside parties.”
The cement of her facial expression cracked, and pure rage seemed to boil through. Cordelia was about to say something very foolish indeed. Brendan reached, lightning-quick under the table, twining his fingers through hers. Her head whipped toward him and it was all he could do not to jerk like he was being electrocuted.
Images and emotions shoved into his brain by the fistful. It was too much all at once and he was dizzy from the flurry of information. He couldn’t grasp onto one idea or picture, only hold on and try not to throw up on Messina’s shiny table.
She was so angry, so much more angry than frightened. She pictured herself leaping over the table, yanking Messina by his tie and smacking his face against the table over and over. This motherfucker—oof, it shouldn’t be so sexy to hear her say such a filthy word, but saints preserve him, it was—was threatening her. She was doing her best, she was doing exactly what the League asked her to, and he was threatening her. She’d worked for them for years, doing exactly what she was told, what she agreed to do when they hired her, and the minute she couldn’t produce instant results, he threatened to reveal her location to her mother. Her mother, who would jump on the opportunity to try to manipulate her, if not force her, back into the position of being her meal ticket. Cordelia should have known better than to believe she was safe, even ten years later. And she couldn’t help but feel this was Alex’s fault somehow, as if he’d told Messina that Bernadette was her weak spot, the best leverage to use against her. And why was Brendan even here? Her lack of success wasn’t Brendan’s fault. Were they going to turn Brendan into another bit
of leverage? Threaten to hurt him if she didn’t work faster? She wouldn’t have it. She just wouldn’t—
Brendan pulled his head up against the weight of all those rushing thoughts, like raising his head through the surface of the water. He struggled to keep his face impassive as he realized what was happening. Instead of her feeling his emotions through touch, he was feeling her emotions. Her rage and despair and slipping between the bubbles of emotion like an eel, and then fear and affection for Brendan.
It was a small miracle. How was this even possible? This wasn’t supposed to be how her gift worked. She was a receiver, not a transmitter, but every flicker of her thoughts over his nerve endings was absolutely real and right. It only made him want her more. He’d never shared a flat with a woman, but he welcomed her into his head.
Messina was still talking, but Brendan could barely pick out the words. He loosened his grip on her hand and the flood of feelings and images slowed to a manageable trickle.
“You are mistaken,” Messina was saying. “There will be consequences for Mr. O’Connor if you do not produce the desired results. We do not keep people in management positions when they don’t fulfill expectations.”
A flash of irritation echoed through him, and he wasn’t sure if it was from Cordelia or himself. Calling his position “management” was a bit of an elegant overstatement. He “managed” three people and spent more time on a forklift moving cartons around than he did in an office. But the idea that he was going to be demoted because of some petulant asshole in a suit, who seemed to have no appreciation for how psychics worked, just pissed him off. And apparently, it pissed off Cordelia, too, which he appreciated.
“So, your options are to work harder, or find another position,” Messina said.
“Is that a hint that there is another touch-know waiting in the wings to take my place?” Cordelia asked.
Messina’s face remained impassive. “League staffing issues are not your concern, Ms. Canton.”
Cordelia’s lips tensed ever so subtly in an expression that might have looked angry, but Brendan knew she was smirking. “Understood. Can we please be excused?”
“I expect to see you both in the rift site workspace bright and early tomorrow morning,” Messina said.
“Thank you. Lovely to meet you,” Cordelia said briskly, rising from her chair and walking out without waiting for a response. Brendan didn’t trust himself to say goodbye, simply nodding at Messina and following her.
She’d cleared the front door before Brendan emerged from the interrogation room. He’d seen that kind of walk before, when his sisters or mother were steaming through their anger, arms stiff and backs rigid. She’d be halfway to her trailer before she realized he wasn’t behind her.
Maybe he’d wait to tell her about the transmitter issue. She didn’t seem to be in the mood for new information.
10
Cordelia
Messina’s arrival caused more chaos than Cordelia thought possible, and she’d spent years traveling with actual clowns.
It wasn’t just that he’d stomped all over Cordelia’s first real connection with the artifact or that he’d threatened her and Brendan. The easy friendships she was developing with the “ladies of the League” dissolved like smoke in the wind. Jillian was clearly trying not to meltdown in the face of this new officious intruder and how he seemed to be re-arranging the hierarchy of the League village. Every evening at five, Bael showed up at her office and practically dragged her home so she and the baby could rest. Sonja was quietly industrious while shooting poisonous glares towards Alex and Messina. Poor Dani kept disappearing into the woods with Zed on errands she couldn’t describe to Cordelia for her “own safety.”
Suddenly, the League village was a significantly less fun place to work. With five new housing trailers full of security officers—plus Messina’s own mobile McMansion—added to the “neighborhood,” people didn’t meet at the picnic tables for games or meals anymore. League employees seemed more restrained, scurrying from place to place with files under their arms, not dawdling for conversation. She supposed it made sense, considering the whole armed guard thing.
Cordelia was not speaking to Alex, no matter how many times he tried to “explain” awkwardly in the middle of work. She felt betrayed somehow, even though she didn’t know if it was Alex who told Messina to use her mother against her, or if Messina was able to divine that using his evil bureaucrat powers. She wasn’t sure which would make her feel better. The only thing that did make her feel better was treating Alex like a stranger, so she went with that.
By comparison, Brendan and his confusing flip-flopping behavior, which he seemed to have stopped for the moment, seemed pretty minor. So he’d been weird one morning, big deal. He’d been unrelenting in his support for her in every other moment, including anchoring her in their disastrous “meeting” with Messina and keeping her from trying to flip that stupid metal table at one of the most powerful supernatural beings in the League. For that alone, he’d earned her loyalty.
The casket entity—or Pandora, as Cordelia had dubbed her, because she was a mystery that lived in a box—seemed to resent Messina’s presence as much as Cordelia did. The next morning, he’d been present in Jillian’s office watching the video feed while Cordelia and Brendan attempted contact and the casket refused to engage. She refused to show Cordelia so much as a flash of an image for days, as if she was trying to prove to Messina (and Cordelia, for that matter) who held the power in the relationship.
Honestly, she felt a little sorry for it. It was lonely, so desperate for anyone to contact it that would latch on to anything. She knew what it was like to be so alone, isolated, needing someone who understood so badly that it was a physical ache in the bones.
Cordelia kept pushing herself, thanks to Messina’s threats. And at one point, she slipped and dared to put her hands on that glassy obsidian surface before Brendan could stop her. She ended up waking in a clinic bed again, resulting in more medically-ordered time off work.
Messina had not been impressed. For that matter, neither was Dr. Carmody.
Cordelia couldn’t find it within her to give a damn.
OK, maybe she felt sort of bad about Dr. Carmody.
So she visited the post office and spent time with Bonita, who seemed like an island of calm compared to what was happening in the village. Sensing her restlessness, Bonita taught Cordelia all new tricks, like how to push images out instead of pulling them in, a tactic Bonita had once used to show her husband how much she loved him.
And she helped Cordelia build her mind palace. Cordelia’s started with the hangman’s rope dream. She built the apartment—sad and non-descript, nothing scary beyond its inescapability—and then she built the gallows inside of it, shoving the crowd of screaming townsfolk in there and them slamming a thick door shut on the memory, vowing that it would stay inside, never to escape again. Even the mental gesture was enough to take a tiny bit of weight off of her shoulders.
She worked through the worst of her visions. Memory by memory, she locked them away in those popcorn-ceilinged studios. She was sure a therapist would tell her that locking away that pain instead of processing it was unhealthy, but it wasn’t her pain in the first place. It was someone else’s, dumped into her head as a convenient storage place.
Besides, she had enough issues to deal with. As she built those apartments, the resentment she felt for her mother seemed to flare all the more. If Bernadette had just a little bit of grace about not receiving the gift, if she’d nurtured Cordelia at all, life would have been so much easier.
Bonita seemed to sense this tension and Cordelia suspected her of activating some sort of lovingly intrusive mom phone tree, because suddenly, she was finding coolers on her porch every day filled with homemade comfort foods. Having a suspicious nature, she verified the identity of each well-intended elderly lady with Bonita to make sure she didn’t get poisoned in some fairy tale scenario.
The more she built her mind pa
lace, the easier it was for Cordelia to maintain her shield. She supposed it made sense. The shield wasn’t fighting to maintain control over all of the old visions bouncing around in her head, so it was easier to keep new ones out. Bonita enjoyed testing her by handing her mail—which was probably a violation of several federal laws, but Bonita was her own supervisor—to see if she could block out messages from emotionally loaded packages.
This particular morning, she handed Cordelia a thick manila envelope marked with a set of scales by the return address. Cordelia focused on keeping the emotional vibrations thrumming from the paper out of her head. She turned it over in her hands. The return address was listed as a law firm in New Orleans, Gable, Raghetti, and Marks, and was addressed to a William Boone.
“Nothing?” Bonita asked, her gray brows raised.
“Not a flash,” Cordelia said. “Why?”
Bonita shrugged, her expression coy. “I refuse to violate the sacred trust bestowed upon me by the local residents.”
Cordelia smirked. “Of course you wouldn’t.”
“But if I did, I might ponder aloud whether this is the final divorce settlement paperwork for the Boone divorce. Billy and Naomi Boone were married all of three and a half years before they filed for divorce—huge scandal, because dragon shifters don’t divorce but honestly, a marriage between a dragon shifter and a big cat shifter is just asking for trouble,” Bonita drawled. “The divorce has dragged out for twice as long as they were married, because dragons don’t give up their treasure and lions don’t give up anything they consider their own. It has been one of the nastiest legal battles in Mystic Bayou’s history. And if this is the final decree and both of the Boones have touched this paperwork, their anger should be poring through the envelope like radiation.”
Cordelia shook her head. “I don’t feel a thing.”
“Very impressive, my young apprentice,” Bonita said.
Cordelia asked, “Is that the end of my homework for the day?”